When It Rains

      That Friday it rained at all places.  On Saturday it still rained.  Today (Sunday January 30, 2011) it still drizzled.  The village headman was worried.  If rain continued, surely he would have to send the flood victims to a refugee camp.  He was away but had directed his secretary to make his rounds at intervals and update him with the latest development.  It was reported that the water level at Parit Mohamad had risen, but was still below the danger zone.

Black sky.  Sometimes it rains, at other times, it doesn't.

Rain, rain, go away...

      My daughter, Husna, prepared lunch which consisted of lobster cooked in coconut milk, fried cabbage and fried fish.  The tummy is always hungry when it rains.  Therefore, having lunch when it rains is always interesting and enjoyable. 

Lobster cooked with coconut milk...

Fried cabbage...

   

    When it rained, Dad stayed home as he could not go to tap rubber.  Mum and sister prepared lunch early.  Once, they prepared white rice with 'meranti leaves'  (a kind of vegetable that was abundant in the countryside) cooked with coconut milk topped up with fried soy cakes dipped in hot ketchup.  They set the food near the doorway facing the neighbour's house.  Then the whole family sat down to a delicious lunch in the cold rainy afternoon.  That was the good old days.
   

  

Tauhu goreng sambal kicap

Sometimes it rained suddenly while we, the children were enjoying our games in our village, we scampered back to the safety of our own homes.  Sometimes, the rain got too heavy which soon resulted in the whole village soaked in flood which was not too deep.  Only around the ankles.  When that happened, we would go out and waded in the water, enjoying the feeling of the current around our toes and heels.

    

Enjoying ourselves in the flood

You also want  to enjoy the flood?

     Sometimes we couldn't manage to reach home before the rain, therefore we sheltered under somebody's house (wooden houses were built on stilts; quite high which enabled us to stand under them for shelter against the rain.  To kill the boredom, we would look for lizards in between the wooden stilts.  Sometimes we found them and killed them.  Sometimes we would find centipedes which these we too, would kill.

     Sometimes, we found a lot of interesting things under the houses.  We found hairpins, combs, belts, coins.       

    

Coin

     Those were the good old days.  Now, it has been a long time since we were caught in flood.